That is, when you’re speaking of the juiciness quotient, and head coach Flip Saunders delivered at shootaround this morning.
Again, he had a limited group to work with, as JaVale McGee and Mike Miller were off speaking with law enforcement authorities about the Gilbert Arenas/Javaris Crittenton incident, and Caron Butler had a family emergency to deal with, one that Saunders said wouldn’t prevent him from playing tonight against Detroit.
But the topic du jour was Andray Blatche, who was suspended from practice yesterday and tonight’s game — he reportedly responded, according to his Facebook page, by going to Atlantic City — and Saunders was asked what impact he hoped the suspension would make.
“I hope it impacts him,” said Saunders. “I hope he comes back energized. I hope he comes back with a focus. I hope he understands what it takes to win. My biggest thing since coming here, I’ve gone to four straight conference championships. I have never ever in those teams, ever had a player ask about shots, and since I’ve come here, the main thing, my main focus, the change has been the number of players that ask about, I gotta get shots. In Detroit for three years, I never had one player ask, and the same thing in Minnesota. I think the only guy I ever had in about 14 years was maybe Wally Szcerbiak a few times, and Dray’s one of them.
“Until that changes, those guys, as players, don’t have a chance. I know he said, ‘Well, I didn’t get a shot in the game.’ Well, if you’re 6-10, 6-11, you can get a shot by getting an offensive rebound. I think anybody, whether it’s him or anybody that thinks a coach has to run plays to get you shots, that’s a sign of a team that’s not going to be a very good team. You get shots by playing the game, moving the ball, and just playing how you’re supposed to play, and shots will come. If you become a shot searcher, or someone has to get you shots, you them become a very predictable team.”
Saunders has had to become a man of discipline, but he hasn’t let it get him down.
“I don’t get that frustrated, with having coached in the CBA for eight years,” he said. “That was life. Every day was like that. I think you worry about what you have. I think, as a coach, you look at the challenges. I think right now, I’m probably more motivated and more excited about doing things right now than when I took over the job because I see where they’re at and things that have to change. It’s just a matter of now of pounding the rock as many times as you can to get it to break. If might break after the first swing, but it might after the hundredth.”
As for tonight, Saunders said that Fabricio Oberto, Dominic McGuire, and McGee were likely to pick up some of Blatche’s minutes, but that he would also give some extra burn to Antawn Jamison and Brendan Haywood, since both have been playing so well.
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